Montoni's – Page 88 – Son of Stuck Funky

Sunday Will Never Be the Same

Um. I’m not Italian, but a lot of Italians I know enjoy their Sunday dinner very early evening/late afternoon. Opening Montoni’s at five? Great business move. Instead of cutting back hours…how about letting some “staff” go? Here’s my list of everyone who works or has sought employment at Montoni’s:

Les (weekends)
Khan
Cory (only on Valentine’s Day or after getting in trouble at school)
Wally
Maddie
Crazy Harry (not an employee but drives Maddie on deliveries)
Summer
Keisha (only asked for a job so as not to be outdone by Sum’ Mo’)
Rachel (longest-tenured Montoni’s employee)
Nameless girl seen here with Rachel
The two blondes with Rachel in the upper-right of this (pre-time-jump) picture
Chef Carlo Mastriani: one of the characters featured on the website whom we have yet to see in the strip.

Let me know if I forgot anybody. And what’s with these two leering at each other in panel three? Per favore, hope they’re not gonna go at it right there on the counter…

Last of the Montoni’s

Mutt and Jeff Funky and Les return to a typically somber Westview Welcome. Now that these birds have returned to Ohio, isn’t it time for Tony to fly home as well? Bet he’ll be pleased to see what a good steward Funky has been to the business that bears his family name. At any rate, Tony’s sure to feel happy that at least Les was able to leverage this business trip to seal his book deal, right? Right?

If I Can't Make It There, Can't Make It Anywhere…

The sign on the door says it all: Out of Business. Funky and Les bid arrivederci to the New York store. But in a final “F you” to the landlord and to all New Yorkers, before locking up, the boys have left every faucet in the place wide open…note the water just beginning to seep out at the bottom of the window in panel 2. Take that, City of Broken Dreams!

The Declaration of Indifference

Well, look who came back to “help”. Where the @#$% have you been?

I’m on Funky’s side this time: I was gonna get on him for responding to Les’ “big news” with the usual dreary negativity. But he brought Les along on this trip for help and probably moral support, and off goes the Delicate Genius to take a meeting with his wacko “agent” while Funky is left, alone, to schlep more boxes. Les’ schmuckiness star continues to ascend.

Welcome to (My) Jungle

AAAIIIIIEEEEEEEEE (Click to view larger)

Nothing caps off a depressing week of “un-funnies” like the ol’ sideways-formatted comic-book cover “tribute”. And this week’s honoree is even more obscure than usual. “Jungle Comics”? Must have been before my time. The comic books I spent my allowance on were 15¢, not 10¢…and I Google-image-searched“Jungle Comics covers” and I get the feeling that “Jungle” comics were kept behind the counter instead of on the rotating wire rack next to Superman…lookit all that leg! This stuff might’ve been pre-Comics Code.

Check out grimacing, shirtless (fortunately that’s cropped out) Funky, tangling ass with an exquisitely coiffed mandrill. Careful with that knife, Funk-zan, you might cut your other hand…if that is your other hand; in my paper it’s colored differently than your knife-wielding hand. Maybe the mandrill’s throwing a right?

Anyway, what’s the gag here? “…turning over a new leaf goes pretty much unnoticed when you live in a jungle.” As Livia Soprano would’ve said: “Ohh, poor you!” I’m thinking that TB was just so intent on shoehorning in a tribute to his fetish comics that he crafted yet another stilted, un-lifelike “punchline” to justify it. What “jungle” does Funky live in? Westview, Ohio? He’s the richest, albeit most miserable man in town. The hell with this jungle, ask your nephew cousin Wally about being stuck in a Godforsaken desert hellhole for five or ten years.